


Abandonment Issues

by volpeanon



Category: Prototype (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Arguments and Near Death Experiences, Cross Lives Bitch, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, How Homosexual Of You - The Fic, M/M, Post-Game, canon-divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22975078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volpeanon/pseuds/volpeanon
Summary: "Get off me, that's a fucking order- Alex! You can't do this! Get your fucking hands off me- don't leave him!”
Relationships: Robert Cross/Alex Mercer
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	Abandonment Issues

Cross didn't see or even feel the explosion; he just came to, slumped in the helicopter. The world spun around him, the sounds of the fight distant and tinny in his ringing ears, hot blood slick on the side of his face. But he still heard it. Just barely, as he caught sight of Alex and Morgan crouched behind cover, he caught what Alex shouted over the noise, and it made his churning stomach sink. "Get him out of here!"

" _ No- _ !" he lunged - tried to lunge, one of his legs giving way with a pain he hadn't noticed before and his head was  _ swimming _ so badly - but Alex had seen him like he'd seen Alex, and slid the door of the chopper shut before he got to it. He slammed against it with his whole weight, jerking the handle that wouldn't give, fists hammering against the window, roaring "Alex! Don't you fucking dare!  _ Alex!" _

There were hands trying to pull him away. Alex stepped back, pale eyes never leaving his. He had no purchase, Wisemen were dragging him back, and he was thrashing against them, kicking, punching, roaring-

"Get off me, that's a fucking order-  _ Alex _ ! You can't do this! Get your fucking hands off me- don't  _ leave  _ him!”

They ignored him. They had never ignored him before. The chopper was taking off, and he tried to get to the window, to not let Alex out of his sight, but he was already gone; left behind. Someone's nose broke under Cross's fist and someone else cried out as his boot met their ribcage, he didn't care, they couldn't do this, they couldn't make  _ him _ do this.

"Cross,  _ please _ , you've got a concussion- you'd be a sitting duck down there-" he shoved them away, heard them hit the wall with a pained grunt, and managed to drag himself almost to the cockpit before they were all on him again, bearing him to the ground. He couldn't see; he didn't realise why until the hot tears broke free and cascaded down his face.

"You motherfuckers!" he screamed, choking on it "You're leaving him to die!"

“We'd  _ all _ be dead, he's tough-"

He couldn't hear, didn't want to hear, he struggled and sobbed into the floor and they, with all the determination he had trained into them, held him there and didn't give in.

Alex felt like shit on a physical level, but it did nothing to dampen his spirits. Another Blackwatch base destroyed, a new Bloodtox even deadlier than the last survived and defeated - it had been close, the closest call yet, but he'd fucking  _ done  _ it, and even managed to send the team away before the casualties got serious. Cross was going to be annoyed at him for getting sent off, he could be such a control freak on the field - but Alex was good at worming his way back into the good books by now. He ached all over, felt way too light, there was mud caked all over him head to foot from running through the wilderness to get back to their hideout without being seen; he was close, though, and it gave him the energy to pick up a sprint for the last fifty miles home. Night had fallen; he was looking forward to bearing the good news and proving himself, yet again, as close to indestructible as a living thing could get. So he snuck in past Fife and Solomita on the door - their eyes keyed into spotting humans, not Alex in all his malleable glory - and made his way with a bounce in his step to the door of their room.

At least he didn't barge in with fanfare. He slipped through, finding it dim inside, not wanting to wake Cross if he was sleeping off the injuries. It had taken Alex two days to slog his way home that low on mass, so Cross would be almost fine, but head wounds and concussions were worth the caution.

Cross wasn't asleep. He was sat at the old desk, hunched and still, and something… something was making Alex's skin start to prickle. The bed wasn't made. There was a plate of food almost precariously placed on a far corner of the desk, totally untouched. The room had the lingering smells of other Wisemen recent in the air; Cross didn't hold meetings in his  _ bedroom _ , in fact, he made a specific point of it. He was a private person and he thought it was unprofessional.

Alex shut the door quietly behind him. He saw a flicker of movement through Cross's broad shoulders. 

"Get.  _ Out _ ."

Cracked and exhausted, his voice rasped out raw and made Alex's blood run cold. The first thing his mind rushed to was that something had happened while he was gone.

"Hey," he managed hesitantly "It's me."

Cross jolted like he'd been hit, turning sharply; his eyes gleamed in the half light as they fixed, wide, on Alex. Alex took in his hair, as mussed as if he'd only just got up from a restless night's sleep, and the shadow of unshaven stubble on his jaw.

Unwelcome, the thought that maybe this had something to do with him wormed its way into existence. Then Cross was up, lurching out of his chair, across the room before Alex could blink; the sharp right hook caught Alex dead on the cheekbone. He wasn't really expecting that. He wasn’t expecting any of it; not being seized by the lapels and “You  _ fucking _ asshole!” roared at him, or the crush of Cross's mouth on his too messy to really be a kiss. By the time he'd got his wits together to try and put his arms around Cross, they were apart, and Alex took in the heaving shoulders and clenched jaw with apprehension. 

The pause that came after was unbearable, so he broke it. "What did I do?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Cross bristled, head to foot, his shoulders squaring like he was getting ready for a fight. "What did you  _ do!? _ What the fucking hell do you think you did! You almost fucking died!"

He was smart enough to know "I didn't though" was another wrong answer, but it was the best he could do, taping on "it wasn't that bad" to the end and knowing full well Cross wouldn't believe it.

"The fucking  _ point _ here, Alex, is that you didn't listen to me! We agreed on this- it's my call to make, it's my fucking decision and I had ordered a retreat, not a goddamn suicide mission for one base!"

"I-" it had never occurred to him that not succeeding was an option, in the same way he'd never  _ really _ believed he would die out there "I just- it made sense, I didn't realise-"

"You didn't  _ realise _ I didn't want to fucking  _ abandon _ you?"

"I just wanted you to be safe."

"We aren't safe! I'm not here to be safe! I am here because I want to make things right and I can't  _ do _ that if you're going to be sending me off just because you're worried! I am  _ done _ leaving my men behind! I am not-" his voice broke but there was too much momentum for him to stop "-living the rest of my life without you knowing I could have done something if I had  _ been _ there!"

Alex sucked in a breath. "You couldn't even walk straight, how could you-"

"I survived  _ you _ , didn't I?" Cross snapped back "I'm pretty goddamn tough, which you keep forgetting! Get it into your fucking head, because if I can't trust you out on field I don't want you there, and you can sit your ass here and find out how I felt!"

It wasn't that it was making Alex angry, exactly; he would've called the feeling that was clenching in his chest more akin to desperation. "But I can still take more than you, so why the fuck shouldn't I? I just want this all to be over so we can be normal together. What am I supposed to do if _I_ lose _you?"_

"The difference is that  _ I _ can't force you to do jack shit, all I have is trust that you’re not going to pull another stunt like this again!"

"So if you're dying I don't get to save you unless I ask permission first?"

"I'm fucking serious, Alex-" he used his captain voice, a warning growl that made Wisemen snap to attention and was woefully ineffective against Alex.

"So am I! I'm not  _ trying _ to make you angry but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Sit there and do nothing? Let you hurt yourself more because you can never let go of this shit? I can  _ help, _ I can finish this so we can all just be done with it.”

“Or you can get yourself killed because  _ you  _ never think anything through! Christ, you just throw yourself at things that are going to kill you without even a goddamn word!”

“Because I can take it, where the hell were you for all Manhattan?”

_ “This isn’t Manhattan any more!  _ They’ve had time to get better at fighting you! Haven’t you fucking  _ noticed?  _ Every time we do anything they have something new to throw at you and it’s worse  _ every. Fucking. Time. _ And I’m going to lose you because you don’t fucking  _ listen to me!” _

“I’m listening,” Alex breathed hard “To you asking me to do something I  _ can’t do.” _

“Then I will leave you the fuck behind!”

“Just try it.”

“Jesus  _ fucking  _ Christ, Alex!” Cross whipped something that had been in his hand against the wall, Alex didn’t see what, and spun on his heel, locking his fingers behind his head as he stepped away. Alex watched his knuckles turn white. He said nothing; Cross said nothing; the thundering anger of Cross's pulse didn't subside. It was five minutes before Cross turned around, to find the room empty.

Alex paced through the woods like a cryptid in a leather jacket all night and all day and all night again. The quiet but constant sounds of nature were more soothing than he had used to think they were, before he tuned into the right frequencies. Now he was surrounded by rodents chewing and scampering and getting into furious, squeaking fights too high pitched for human ears. Even the plants growing made an almost-noise. He sank himself into the emotionlessly vibrant thrum of the earth, where things were less complicated, but no less beautiful for the lack of human things hypocrisy and guilt.

On the second morning he felt like he was mellowed out enough for round two. When he finally showed back up at the base, Jenkins was puffing on a cigarette at the door. Out of habit, Alex flicked it with a tendril, putting it out. “Are you on a smoke break or guard duty?”

“Oh, go the whole way why don’t you, and wear his face if you’re gonna sound like him,” Jenkins snapped. As Alex went on inside, the Wiseman called after him, as if an afterthought “He was asking after you, you realise. Don’t tell him I told you.”

Alex didn’t know if that soothed him or made him more anxious.

He slipped shadow-like to the privacy of their room, finding it empty, and deciding to wait. He sat on the bed, against the wall with his knees drawn up under his chin. Things were neater than they had been, but still not quite their usual immaculateness. He saw the remains of a splash of coffee on the floor, half mopped up and not quite dried yet. He pressed his mouth against his knees and waited.

When Cross came in, he did it slowly, giving Alex a few moments before he looked up to meet his eyes. They stared each other down, to Alex’s relief, not nearly so uncomfortably as before. Alex didn’t try to think or express anything, just sat there, and let Cross read him for whatever he could, or maybe wanted, to find. At length, there was a soft sigh. Cross ran a hand through his hair as he came over, perching on the side of the bed close enough to Alex that Alex felt invited to shuffle closer. It was very, very quiet in between the concrete bunker walls. He listened to Cross’s lungs, and his heart, and matched them in his own body.

“I have… left so many people to die for shit that didn't matter.” Cross’s hands fidgeted in his lap while his eyes stayed locked on the floor “A higher success percentile. Just because I was told to. I won’t be that man again. I’d do _ anything  _ for you, Alex. Don’t send me away when I can still do something. Even if it's just being there. Just don’t make me leave you behind.”

Alex slid his arms around him, felt the harsh tension bleed out of him inch by inch; they fell gently sideways, with Alex wriggling to tuck his head under Cross’s chin. “I’m sorry I love you too much.” he murmured against Cross’s throat.

"I can deal with that. Just promise me."

"I promise." he closed his eyes to the feeling of Cross's fingers running through his hair "If you promise that between taking down Blackwatch and staying with me, you'll pick me."

Cross's hand paused, head moving slightly to look down at Alex. "Of  _ course _ I would-"

"No, you wouldn't," Alex sat up slightly and fixed Cross with his stark gaze "You'd get it into your stupid head that you deserve that, or that it's the only way I can live. You'd do it for me and you'd ruin my fucking life. Promise me you'll remember, you can’t tell me you’d do anything for me and expect me not to say it back."

Cross just looked at Alex for what felt like a long time, before his hand slid down to cup Alex's face, his thumb rough and warm against his cheekbone. "I promise."


End file.
